


Operation Pumpkin

by accol



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Halloween
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-16
Updated: 2012-11-16
Packaged: 2017-11-18 18:51:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/564223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/accol/pseuds/accol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em> Nate looked along the vine, sizing up the lot he’d thrown in with. He could work with this.</em>
</p><p>A pumpkin AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Operation Pumpkin

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the generation-kill [Prompt Fitness Test](http://generation-kill.livejournal.com/791875.html?thread=10658115#t10658115). Based on fictionalized portrayals in the HBO miniseries Generation Kill. No harm or infringement intended.

 

Nate looked along the vine, sizing up the lot he’d thrown in with. Brad was first, solid and almost perfectly round. Ray was next, garishly green leaves and spiraling coils of vine were shading his face. Walt was bringing up the rear, orange like the sun.   
  
Ok, he could work with this.  
  
“Gentlemen, let’s roll.”  
  
****  
  
“Brad here was trying to order a wood crate and have it delivered, but it didn’t get here in time. That’s how we ended up in this P.O.S. cardboard trough.”  
  
Evan, this random butternut squash that had found his way into the pumpkin bin, leaned in to face Ray more directly. Walt thought he actually looked interested.  
  
“The thing is, we make this look good,” Ray said.  
  
****  
  
In the dim light it was almost impossible to see further than the potatoes. One of the overhead fluorescent bulbs buzzed sporadically. Somewhere in the darkness there was a menacing squelching noise.  
  
“Sir, the tomatoes are restless. What’s the ROE here?”  
  
Nate felt the tension radiating off of Brad’s peel. Brad was perceptive; he was almost certainly feeling Nate’s own tension reciprocating.  
  
“We’re alone here, Brad. Twenty klicks from our home garden, less than 2 hours from certain hostile invasion into this section.” Nate shifted. One of his ribs pushed against one of Brad’s. He looked into the dark, across the hill of pinto beans. “The ROE is that we stick together.”  
  
****  
  
“Walt!”  
  
The knife came down and for a horrible moment Ray was sure that he was a goner.  
  
“I’m ok. I’m ok.” Walt now wore a wide smile.   
  
Ray’s seeds stopped churning. Now they just felt sort of weird. Like, nervously excited or some shit.  
  
****  
  
Nate watched from a distance. Fraternization was still on his mind, even now when he had one tendril toward a new life. He decided he’d keep a mental snapshot of this moment -- Ray puking, Walt reaching out to hold Ray’s vine back out of the mess, Brad standing in the back with a watchful eye. Nate felt the magic marker line across his lower half turn into something that looked more like a smile.


End file.
